Weather Monks - Law's Collections 09
by Harmonica Smile
Summary: To stave off bad weather, the crew and Law make teru-teru bouzu — weather dolls — and hang them around the the Thousand Sunny. Newly freed from a two year captivity, passage on the the Sunny offers Law rest, recreation and recovery. A tale of a shattered man and the captain of the Strawhats. Takes place during their journey to Red Force. Canon-divergent/AU. Law x Luffy.


**A/N:** For those who have not read _Repossession_ (not a T rating, read warnings if you visit), the premise is that Law never made it out of Dressrosa, and Vergo survived Punk Hazard, Doflamingo escaped the marines. Law was captured and never made it to Zou, and was held captive by the Family for two years, and then captured by the marines along with Doflamingo and Vergo. _Repossession_ starts with Law's rescue and journey with the Strawhats, before he is placed under Shanks' protection on the Red Force. He is with Luffy for two years in that period, but Luffy eventually finds love with Zoro, and Law with Marco, though the friendship with Luffy is important throughout the series, as is their relationship in _Repossession_. This is a pre-Marco, supplementary piece to the beginning events of _Repossession_.

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 **Weather Monks**

* * *

Law sat, back against the wooden wall of the Sunny, zipping _teru-teru-bouzu_ around the deck. They dipped like fireflies in and out of dusk. Brook was the best to scare. He was a skeleton frightened of his own shadow after all – if he had one to throw. _Ho, ho, ho_. Tied to balustrades to invoke good weather, the cloth dolls swung like ghosts rather than the monks they symbolised. Luffy snapped at them like a rubber terrier chasing aeroplanes. Law curled the hand he wasn't using. It ached with the promise of inclement weather.

oOOo

Nami's Clima Tact was out of order while Usopp upgraded it, so on a quiet afternoon the crew assembled the small cloth dolls. The group easily made room for Law at the table laid out with the materials.

Law was still so closed in on himself, the ridicule of the weekly Family meetings so entrenched, that even though he knew he was safer now, he trod lightly, and didn't say much in larger groups. He stuck closer to Robin or Nami than the rest of the crew — Luffy and Chopper excepted — when he sought company, or it sought him.

Apart from Jora, women hadn't directed his torture over the last two years, and even Jora's form of torment, emasculation, prettification (of his fucked-up feet of all things), was nothing compared to Doflamingo's evisceration of his whole being. He was still so tired.

Chopper almost wriggled into the floor to see him there, as if he was the walking embodiment of candy floss, and the reindeer happily pushed a bundle of materials his way. Candy floss made of tar, perhaps. Law tried to join in to this kind of group work. Tried to keep active to convince himself he was free.

He forced himself to look out at the ocean stretching for miles rather than retreating into the dark recesses of the hull. During his confinement he'd dreamed of the ocean, imagined its choppy terrors and soothing rhythms, drawn its depths and shades and colours when he'd had the materials. And here he was, surrounded by the sea, but so sure it would be taken from him, that he could hardly raise his eyes.

He touched the marks the shackles had made, the scar left behind in his ear from the removal of the seastone chip, and told himself the Strawhats had his back. Where was his own crew? Everything was a jumble.

Chopper was concerned that the edge of wildness, the fear of a cornered animal, had not quite left Law's eyes, so he was relieved when an inked hand reached for cloth, paper, and twine. Law's motivation was hard to determine. Sanji chewed on a cigarette in a corner of the room, imagining the lunch menu and watching the surgeon. Did Law act because he was told to, he thought he should, or he wanted to? Connection with this beaten down man crackled with interference.

Robin saw him scrunch up the paper into a ball and stop. Very subtle, his hands curved over it, but there was no inhalation, hardly a stiffening of his arm or body. Hiding something or having got used to something, he lifted his hand carefully from the table. The fingernails of the other hand were still on the mend. Couldn't he move this hand further? He stood up and walked away from the table, Usopp complaining that he'd hardly started, and the rest of them not at all sure who was in their midst.

It wasn't the guy who'd had the plan to free them from that hanging cage in Punk Hazard, almost cavalier, despite having had his heart squeezed to hell and back by that imposter marine. Nor the guy who'd so casually but meticulously crossed the bridge to Green Bit with them, arguing about the definition of fish.

They weren't sure where that part of Law had gone. He'd been a mess when they'd rescued him from the marines, the marines having corralled him with the rest of the Family after a raid. Kizaru had flayed his back, burnt his nails, and they'd all seen Doflamingo's brand, or heard about it.

He wandered to the railing to look out at the sea and forced himself to take in the blue.

"Below him, is it?" Nami murmured. Robin shrugged. Chopper looked set to follow, but Luffy shoved three completed _teru-teru bouzo_ in front of him. He'd painted their faces to look like Usopp, Chopper and his own. "So cool!"

Law, overhearing, guessed Luffy's version of candy floss was more palatable than tar.

When the small dolls were ready for hanging, however, Law came back to the table and picked up a handful. The Strawhats were another in a long list of people or circumstance who had steered him in the right direction, well away from danger. He'd always owe them. It didn't mean that he hadn't experienced the full force of that danger before gaining eventual temporal relief.

Robin's eyes were everywhere as Franky and Chopper hung the little monks at the highest points, Franky lifting him. Luffy and Usopp worked as a pair, Luffy content to watch Usopp labour. Zoro kept a closed and a damaged eye on them all. His haki was awesome, even while he slept. Law's was still at low ebb.

Usually Law was so dexterous. No trouble in handling utensils at the galley table at least, even with those nails. With his height, he was tasked with hanging the weather charms on the rafters and at the higher points of the ship. He twisted the twine around the small neck carefully and stretched up. It was a gruesome custom. If bad weather came, the _teru-teru bouzu_ were beheaded. They received gold if the weather was good. Probably one of Nami's money-making schemes.

Law swapped hands. He cursed quietly. One of Robin's thousand eyes peered in. It looked like the hand he'd stopped curving over the rolled-up paper was a candidate for arthritis. She wondered what had happened.

He was at the further end of the ship, his back to most of them. He gripped the top beam of a railing, almost dropped the doll he was holding.

She sent a few extra hands to help him tie the twine of the _teru-teru bouzu_ around the various palings. When all was done, she walked over, Law not even seeming to notice the little dolls now flapping about in the summer breeze. She called in the extra appendages,

He acknowledged her with a lift of his head. She'd really helped him out when he'd first boarded the ship and the day after the chip had been removed. If there was anyone he trusted on this crew, it was Robin. But he was still very much a stranger in a strange land, even though he and Luffy were still on. They'd kept their relationship quiet before Dressrosa, so he knew the crew had their doubts. He had his doubts. He was shattered. How had Luffy managed to keep anything secret for two years?

"How's the physio going?"

Day by day Law lost edges of the pinched resignation that confined him to a world of Doflamingo's making as he tried damn hard to reconnect with the Strawhats in his own way — with Luffy — but it took time. That tautness was as much to do with the pain that laced his body as with any mental strike.

"Chopper has his work cut out for him."

oOOo

He returned the _teru-teru bouzu_ to their places before his hand crippled him too much and before he used up all of his power, and before the cacophony of energy drove Sanji mad. Law needed his dinner. Had to get his strength up.

He wanted to relieve the ache. It worried him that he couldn't feel anger at the moment, though he had no love for Doflamingo or Vergo. Anger burned quietly through him while they'd kept him imprisoned, but survival was more important, and anger sometimes got in the way. Had he become too compliant? Too willing to allow anything to happen to him?

They sickened him and, by proxy, so did parts of himself, but more as memory than definition. Vergo was responsible for the hand. Law had always physically and mentally battled his way through life, so maybe it wasn't surprising that he accepted this ache as just one of a fucked up row of many.

He lit up a tiny room. He was still weak from Chopper and Sanji removing the seastone chip, and from personally flensing that newer brand from his skin. The accompanying nightmares had drained him further. Doflamingo let him use his power intermittently over the two years, to reassure himself Law still possessed it. Firing it up now that he was free, Law sometimes felt that his mastery of it was still nascent. Back to its nascent stages. He sure as hell wasn't woke in any sense of the term.

But the small dome reassured him. Even at its initial strength. It was contained, like his sub and Cora's dome, and like all the thoughts that had sustained him on the night that he'd lain in bed with his wrist crushed from falling onto it after Vergo had pushed him to the floor earlier in the day, standing on his fingers and pressing into the back of his hand.

They hadn't let him fix it. They hadn't let anyone see it. He'd well and truly angered them, though his insubordination was a thimbleful of spite compared to the barrels of lime they kept plunging him into. Metaphorically speaking, though he put nothing past them.

He tried to get through and past the impotence, the fear, when he could, when he had enough awareness. Two years was enough to grind anyone down, and Law was stronger than most, but they'd smacked him silly.

Like the small dome encircling his hand now, one way through was imagining Cora's fruit like a giant jellyfish encasing his sub in calm, and Law and Luffy or Penguin safely within. Lying in his prison bed, the bands Doffy had placed on his wrists an uneven surface he'd got used to sleeping against, he'd indulge for a second or two. Maybe the bed really was his berth on the Polar Tang. Penguin had been his first if he could claim having a first. His first consensual relationship, anyway. It had made him human.

On the way to Dressrosa, Luffy was running from nightmares and Law was hurtling toward them. Of course some kind of convergence occurred. He didn't think fondly of being defenceless for half their time in Dressrosa, and that fucking Bellamy freak, and being shot to fucking pieces, and all the rest of it. But Luffy had come back. Despite Law pushing him away. Of course the kid was selfish as all get out, but Law preferred Strawhat's morals to Doflamingo's. They'd fought together. It was worth a lot.

Luffy couldn't prevent Doflamingo's escape from the marines, even if he had prevented him from squashing his brain like some watermelon piñata, and Law knew a large part of why he was still breathing was Luffy. Strawhat owed Law his life too. It was too much to think about some days, but when the battle ended, Law had looked forward to sorting it out. Before the bamboo staff had whistled through the air and cracked his head in the way Doflamingo had attempted.

So they were trying to find the something they had. Even after everything Law had been through, and after everything Luffy knew – after time, the passing of time – it seemed they still had something.

Laughing and a little disappointed that the zippy good luck charms had returned to warding off bad weather, Luffy flip-flopped to the bench and sat down. Law released the room.

"Do it again." Luffy looked up, his gaze easy but intense. Law sensed Zoro somewhere, making sure his darker tendencies were kept in check. He could hardly run a sentence together, let alone a nodachi through someone. Luffy was pretty safe.

"You scared Brook," Luffy wheezed, sniggering. He pulled his knees up and leant, sank into, Law's side. It was a bit like Bepo, except he'd never slept with Bepo, nor ever wanted to. And Bepo would crush him if he ever got all loose-limbed like this.

"Brook scares Brook." Law's smile was soft and his eyes a little worried. Luffy rubbed his head against Law's arm and then lifted it and slipped under it. Law tensed. Though he'd worked on his hand, Luffy forgot his own strength, but he applied normal pressure. Some of the ice floe slid free. Law needed someone near him who wasn't going to use him, but in turn, did that mean he was using Luffy?

The younger captain took his far hand – Luffy still not his usual grabby, clutchy self. Chopper had warned him Law was cut up all over. He'd seen it for himself, though since the chip's removal Law's bones and muscle and skin were knitting together again. Not all.

Luffy placed that hand on the x on his chest. Law blanked his mind. It was better that there was nothing in there. No fear, anger, love, lust, acceptance. Tabula rasa for just a moment, because he couldn't process anything otherwise.

One of Law's hands had its nails good and burnt and the other was Vergo's work. Luffy brought the palm of the former to his mouth. A quick dart of his tongue — like a mother testing water with her elbow — glanced Law's skin.

He laughed. What a relief that was. Both his own laughter and the action. There was no way Law would have been allowed, in either of his enslavements, anything as innocent with Doflamingo. And even if he'd tried, something so pure, so bizarre, it would be contaminated, stemming from command not free will.

"Mugiwara," he brought the slighter man closer. He was a man now. When they'd first met, he was a man in the sense of strength, and even some pirate experience, but there'd been an innocence that both appealed to him and repelled him as something too easily taken advantage of.

"This scar, Law." The X. Luffy had flattened his hand against the upraised skin. He tensed again. So much for blank slates. Zoro had already taken him to task for being with his captain, and his rattled brain had received courteous threats from nearly every member of the crew, including Robin. He was still in no state to tell friend from foe. He hadn't been able to stop the skin from scarring, but Luffy hadn't helped by busting up his sub and busting out of his bandages and threatening to burst Law's surgery open.

He couldn't please Doflamingo. That was the mindbreak. He knew it. Law was steeped in being derided and ridden for things society might find valuable and honourable as much as for those they found despicable. A sense of self, of boundaries, apart from _fuck the fuck off_ , was a snowflake in a blizzard at the moment.

"Reminds me of Ace."

Law paused. Still stiff. A stranger in a strange land. So long as they threw him overboard. Drowning could be kind of peaceful, he'd heard, and maybe his power would be strong enough, he'd be quick enough, to swap himself out with a scale on the wing of a passing pterodactyl or dragon. Though lord knows where he'd end up then. So long as they didn't return him to the marines or Doflamingo. Joker was supposedly still behind bars. He removed his arm from around Luffy, but remained close.

"Good memories or bad?"

Luffy had Law's hand again, the one he'd licked, and he brought it to his mouth, gnawing on a knuckle slightly as if in thought.

"It's not meat, Luffy. It's my hand." Saliva. Ugh.

Luffy looked over at him, smiled, and dropped it. Law retracted it, wiping it across his borrowed jeans. Luffy picked up the other hand, the sore one, and they rested together, lightly touching.

"Good memories. For Ace. Not good for that bastard."

"Akainu."

Luffy nodded. He tipped his head against Law's shoulder. The doctor's back was still healing from Kizaru. The wee ghosties fluttered on the breeze, a few gulls wheeled overhead.

"But it means I won't forget Ace. He'd be happy you saved me. And Jinbei. Sorry I busted your sub."

"And my crew."

"Your crew are pretty cool." Luffy had met them in Zou

Where were his crew?

"They'll be meeting the Red Force. Should catch up with you soon after we duck," Luffy said, reading Law's expression.

"Dock."

"Yeah."

Luffy was carelessly feeling the indentations around his wrist.

"How about you, Law?".

"Don't," Law said, voice quiet. "They don't remind me of anything good."

Luffy pressed his thumb into the depressions, the pads of his fingers against Law's own skin. He murmured against the Heart captain's shoulder. Law wore a sweater and the jeans Brook had given him rather than the stained and sweaty marine prison garb he'd worn when they'd received him. The clothes were too small for Brook, so they fit Law well. The renegade rock style was right up his alley.

"They're survival, Law. These marks. They're a fuck you. They made them, and you didn't want them, I didn't want them. But you made it past whatever way they thought could keep or kill you. A pirate is all about being free, right? These are reminders of being free."

Luffy raised the wrist to his mouth, and this time it was a kiss, not a lick, not some fluffy puppy sniffing out the social quarters of the latest peeing post. He lowered Law's hand again, but kept a hold around the mark. Law didn't agree with the logic a hundred percent. One, because his own logic was shot to pieces at the moment, and two, because he still carried the pain, but Luffy had a point. He breathed out, closed his eyes, and enjoyed the feel of his younger lover mapping terrain.

He lit up a room with his other hand, and freed a few _teru-teru bouzu_ from the rafters and the railings. Luffy's head perked up as Brook's scream echoed from here to West Blue and back. Chopper's excited squeaks mingled with the skeleton's panic as he danced, jumped and swatted at the good luck charms somewhere on the other side of the ship.

Luffy's lips split wide. Before shooting out and finding the railing nearest the oldest and youngest members of the Strawhats, he pulled himself close to his beaten, spent Law, and almost swallowed the fatigued face in front of him with his laughter. Who wouldn't love a man who could make things fly? Maybe he could talk him into levitating some of Sanji's meat out of the kitchen.

Instead, he pushed their cheeks together, and Law held the rubber, twisty mess tightly. Not as he had on the first night on the ship, when deliverance from hell made touch, taste, smell, sound and sight of the other a priority, but as in something good. As in something good in his life.

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 **A/N** : This scene in a much smaller form was in chapter 34 of _Gimcracks_.  
 **Thank you** for reading.


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